mikereflects.com
‘In Search of God,’
The title of this essay,derives from a question given me recently for discussion at our U3A philosophy group which reads as follows:
‘Since time immemorial mankind has required and invented a higher (spiritual) authority with an attendant cult or religion and creed. If we were to suppose that the slate had been wiped clean, what form would mankind invent for the 21st century?’
A presupposition to this question is that all ‘higher’ spiritual or moral authorities/ deities are human inventions, whereas most religions and creeds are based on the presupposition that the higher moral/ spiritual authority is revealed to humanity and is therefore not a human invention. This is an important distinction. Clearly if God is so much beyond and greater and wiser than ourselves, then religion would need to be revealed to us otherwise if it weren’t, we would be open to question or revise it to suit our circumstances. Here it is relevant to quote from a book titled ‘In search of God,’ by David Watson, a Christian author in the 1970’s.
He writes (p. 7 & 8),
‘Some years ago the BBC produced a programme on six major religions of the world. They called the programme Man in search of God. This was a very fair description of man’s search for spiritual reality, which is to be found all over the world, from pagan ritual to cathedral worship, from ouija board experiments to Pentecostal fervour, from radical theology to biblical authority, from transcendental meditation to missionary zeal. In countless ways we see this search for God, or at least for some kind of spiritual reality. Is there anything which transcends the material world of the five senses? Is there a power or a person greater than ourselves that will lift us out of our meaningless existence to what is real and true?
‘And if there is no God, if God is dead, if there are no answers, what then? Many today realise the total futility of life unless there is some infinite reference point. Naturally therefore, even in sophisticated scientific circles, we find man in search of God.
‘In some respects, this is not such a good title for the Christian faith. The prophets of the Old Testament, the apostles of the New Testament, and supremely Jesus himself, were all insistent on one point: that god is in search of man. ‘For the Son of man came to seek and save the lost,’ said Jesus to one bewildered man, startled by the discovery that God had taken the initiative in this search. This is the Christian contention, that God has made, and always makes the first move.
David Watson continues,
‘Nevertheless, we are not passive observers. And if the Christian revelation stresses God’s initiative, it equally calls for our response. ‘You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you,’ said God through the prophet Jeremiah. Jesus said the same thing, ‘Seek and you will find.’ It would seem that the meeting-point occurs when God’s search for man and man’s search for God coincide.
And so to address the subject question, I would first like to change the wording slightly from ‘What form of religion would mankind invent for the 21st century?’ to ‘What form of religion is humanity really looking for in the 21st century?’
A further presupposition the questioner makes is that mankind is homogeneous in what we are each looking for. I would doubt that we are all facing in the same direction when it comes to looking for religious satisfaction. That said however I have tried to collect some possible common objectives that many though not all would articulate.
So what are the spiritual needs of today? Or, to put it differently, what are people looking for when it comes to a god or to committing to a religion? Or, again what kind of higher authority in respect of morality or of spirituality are people looking for? I list some aspirations of this as follows and I use the word ‘god’ in this context with the meaning of an ‘authority and power: I think that 21st century people aspire to:-
1. A god who will satisfy our search of meaning to our own existence and of meaning to the wonders of the universe we live in.
2. A god who reveals him/herself in power, signs and wonders as well as with direction, i.e. a god who demonstrably intervenes for good.
3. A god who will enable us to be free of our own shortcomings, i.e., that will free us from the guilt of past failings and enable us to overcome our present weaknesses.
4. A god that will bring peace between communities, i.e., that will create in people a respect for those of different creed, colour, ethnicity, language, etc.
5. A god who will rectify all ills that may come to us. A god who will let us do what we want and correct all the mistakes we make. A god who prevents natural forces from harming people or the environment.
Different people might focus on one or other or a mix of these aspirations and I will now address these in turn and I will be addressing them from a Christian perspective. David Watson in his book (‘In search of God’) points out that St. Paul found two distinct groups of people in the Roman city of Corinth, those who wanted wisdom (let God convince me with wisdom and logical proofs) and those who wanted signs (let God prove himself to me with signs and wonders). 1 Cor.1 v18-31. So in his Roman world Paul found some who espoused the first aspiration on my list, viz., a god who gives wisdom, and others who aspired to the second kind of god, viz., a revealing powerful god.
I will start with the first aspiration, i.e., a god who makes sense of life. Steven Hopkinson (quoted from the book, ‘The god I want’) states, ‘First I want a god who makes sense out of life as we know it, who gives meaning to the natural processes of the universe. Second I want a god who makes sense of the existence of me, the personality of which I am conscious in myself’. He wanted a god who he could understand and who fitted his rational thought and answered all his deepest questions. Most Christians will testify that Christianity helps them to make sense of their own personality and answer many of their deepest questions, but only when we bring these into the context of faith in God. Clearly without faith in God’s existence there are many questions for which there can be no answer and it can be hard to find any rational meaning to life.
Going back to St. Paul’s experience in Corinth, Paul taught that the Christian Gospel he preached i.e., a Christ who was crucified and whom God raised from the dead (1 Cor.1 v.18-31), is both the wisdom and power of God. In stating this, Paul acknowledged that those who sought wisdom as proof of God and those who sought tangible evidence of God’s intervention as proof, would at first sight consider his Gospel to be foolish.
In respect of those who aspire to a god of wisdom, the Christian Gospel shows God’s wisdom because it takes even the most simple and humblest of believers into a personal trust based relationship with God’s Spirit. Even in human relationships it is surely better to personally know someone and be in an on-going relationship with them (however great that person may be) rather than to merely know about them and to think we can understand them. God is by definition way beyond our comprehension so surely it is wiser Paul might argue, to be in a trusting and personal relationship with God rather than to understand all the whys and wherefores of the universe and why we exist which we could never be able to do anyway!
I will now address the second aspiration for a god who communicates and intervenes for good in the universe. In the same book, ‘The god I want,’ agnostic writer James Mitchel is quoted as stating, ‘The value of a god must be open to test. No god is worth serving unless he is of some use in curing the ills which plague humanity.’ I.e., Mitchel sought for the proof of God’s intervening hand in the meaningless chaos of life. Addressing this kind of question in his time, the apostle St. Paul argued that the Christian Gospel demonstrated the power of God when believers are changed from a self-orientated life to one that demonstrates the love of God even to their enemies and to least deserving in society. And although evils have been and are done in the name of religion, it is also true to say that Christians have brought into existence by means of their faith and practice many major social reforms and benefits for example in areas of the relief of poverty, education, nursing and medicine. Jesus told his disciples that whatever they did for the least in society they were doing for him. So to that extent the Christian God has met James Mitchel’s criteria!
With regard to the third aspiration of those looking for a god to free them of their shortcomings, many Christians at least will testify that in receiving the Gospel of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, they have experienced not only the forgiveness of their sins and transformation of their attitudes, but also the strength to start overcoming their shortcomings. So by their testimony they have found a god who meets their needs in this respect, though they would never claim to reach perfection in this life-time!
With regard to the forth aspiration I have listed, i.e., for peace in the world and harmony between communities, St. Paul claimed that the Christian churches that he had helped to found demonstrated that Jews and Greeks and men and women could worship and work together without the usual disharmony between races and genders evidenced in the Roman Empire. The Christian church has at times been slow to work for respect between others of different creed, gender, race, etc., despite the fact the New Testament teaches such respect. The centrality of God’s inclusive love for all people to the Gospel that Christians are called to spread, should lead us to be inclusive to all those who are different from ourselves.
The fifth aspiration is that of wanting a god who either prevents or rectifies all ills without removing our free choices. It seems that some people would like a god who miraculously heals their diseases and broken bodies when asked to do so; or who prevents tsunamis or train accidents etc. from killing people. However when such folk are pressed, they don’t realistically expect bodies to be restored in the way cartoon characters recover when flattened. Nor do those aspiring for a god who rectifies everything generally want to lose their right to live how they like. These people are really looking for a different kind of universe where decay and mortality no longer exist and where our freedom of will is maintained. Well the Christian faith actually promises this in the long run, it is called the new heaven and earth which will be revealed when the physics of this universe is transformed by God and our deeds are judged by Christ, and where the people have been brought to perfection by being in a close relationship with God. However in the present universe with unperfected people as we are, it is surely unrealistic to aspire to a god who rights all wrongs in the here and now.
Central to many of these aspirations for god or higher authority that people want, is the question of what kind of relationship do they really want between an intervening god and their personal freedom. One person’s freedom can mean another person’s suffering. The intervention that people may claim they want might mean that their freedoms are restricted. This leads to a further conclusion, viz., that people often don’t really want what they claim that they do. This is evidenced in political discussions, for example where people want the government to undertake a myriad of projects, but then don’t want to pay any more taxes (or where a club wants the best speakers but doesn’t want to increase their subscriptions). The same can be true of people searching for the god or religion they say they want. When it comes down to it they don’t want to count the cost!
There may be other aspirations for a god and religion in the 21st century that I haven’t touched on, but I have attempted to address question posed and I have done this with some reference to Christianity and I hope to have shown that these particular aspirations for a 21st century god are already delivered by the God that Christianity claims to reveal.
Mikereflects 2013
